"Watson, you know that there are risks entailed in the work that I— that we perform. You cannot do the work without undertaking those risks."

They turned left from the hallway into the glare of sunlight from the high windows, and gunfire scattered them. Sherlock dove to the right, behind the the plastic barrels now bleeding cooking oil, the officers in different directions, their own guns exploding pops, shells sizzling in the oil on the concrete. Joan felt buffeted by the sounds, too loud to hear but physically powerful, like a torrent of blows. Was this what it was like to be a kernel of popcorn in the kettle? She had already burst open and was now burning against the heating element. She felt the searing along her side, or was it her leg, it was hard to differentiate all the myriad sensations, and as the pot lid descended the pressure increased and in that dark she couldn't see—

Her dreams took her to murky depths where she relived the day at the lake she almost drowned. Her family went there every summer from the time she was eight; it's where she learned to swim and first noticed the different textures of tree trunks and found out how loud nature was without the city sounds to dampen its exuberance. Library books about astronomy and plant identification led to constellations and knowing the names of flowers growing at the edge of the woods. And one morning her foot got tangled in the rope that kept the dock anchored and her brother had to pull her arms almost out of their sockets to get her up to the surface. Her mother didn't let either of them swim for the rest of the summer, three long dry weeks of anger, shame, and fear at the water's edge.

She woke feeling the exhaustion that came of sleeping too long, but the moment she moved she felt the pressure in her throat and tried to gasp, unable to breathe, the lake all over again. Her arms jerked up against restraints and she tried to call out and all at once she was sure she was going to die.

Hands grasped her wrists, steady pressure holding her arms down. She twisted her hands trying to grasp her captor, and he complied, sliding his palms around to cup hers and contain her outstretched straining fingers within the cage of his. As she struggled to get free she had the sick realization that this had happened before. Waking to strangled captivity with no memory except the horror of this already, again.

To her shame, she started to cry, choking against the obstruction in her throat and tears filling her eyes which she now understood to be closed, gummed shut, triggering a new round of panic as she tried to open them and couldn't get her hands up to reach her face.

The hands let go of hers to catch her head, and she flinched as something brushed against her cheeks. Two more passes and her eyes unstuck and she blinked to try to clear them. The hands released her, and she tried to gain control of her breath. The room was dim, and as her focus steadied, the roaring in her ears subsided.

"…let it do the work, Watson. Don't fight. You're in the hospital, and you're intubated. Don't fight the ventilator. Watson, you're all right. This is the hospital, you can't talk because you're on a ventilator." His voice was hoarse, a harsh whisper over the beeps of the monitors. "Please don't, Watson, please, it's all right, it's going to be all right."

The machines sounded different from where she lay, nothing at all like what she recalled from her days striding through rooms just like this, constantly moving and talking and using her hands.

Sherlock continued to whisper as she calmed down, almost murmuring so that she couldn't follow his words, but the meaning was clear. She relaxed her hands and tried to accept the breathing support. He was holding on to the low rail raised on the side of the bed, his head hanging down away from her, and she reached a finger up to tap on the rail to get his attention.

He turned to the rail first, hands moving to grasp hers again before realizing she was conscious. She let her hands lie in his for a moment before gesturing attention, and she blinked hard when he looked up and she saw his face. Two black eyes, maybe a first degree burn on the left side culminating in a large square bandage on his temple. The lines on his forehead and alongside his mouth were dark in the low light. She gripped his hands, eyes wide.

He searched her face intently for a moment before giving her a wry smile. "Ah, Watson, you're here." He released her hands and began unbuckling the restraints at her wrists. "Excellent."

As soon as her arms were free, she reached out toward his face, fingers flexing her question.

"There was a fire at the warehouse, do you remember?" She hesitated, trying find the memory, and rolled her head side to side. "No matter, that's to be expected. You were unconscious when it caught, I think. It was a bit of an obstacle course to exit. We'll go over the details another time. My injuries are all superficial."

She pressed her fingers against her sternum and then waved them to point from her feet to her head before flexing them again.

"You're in the ICU, yes?" She nodded, acknowledging that. "You have two bullet wounds — side and thigh, no significant internal injuries but also no more gallbladder — and a concussion, and you're intubated because of broken ribs and risk of coma. You had a bad reaction to the anesthesia." He broke off and looked toward the end of the room where the crash cart sat, and she realized how unusually still he was, no bounces and hands calm on the railing.

She rubbed her wrists as he continued. "Then you developed a fever and kept trying to remove the tube. That's why you were restrained. You were lucid when they first brought you in, but since then…" His voice trailed off, and his face stilled into that blank look she hadn't seen since the last time he spent days waiting by a damaged woman in a hospital bed. He shook it off almost immediately. "It's good to have you back, Watson."

She spelled out Y-O-U B-O-R-E-D in ASL and tilted her head as much as she could to make it a question. The lines on his face eased as he shook his head. "Yet another hidden talent you picked up without my help."

She nodded her head and spelled S-E-C-O-N-D G-R-A-D-E, hesitating briefly for the G. "Of course, a child prodigy." Another tilt of her head as she finished P-A-P-E-R.

"Oh," he said, patting several pockets before pulling a small pad from his back pocket and giving it to her, then continuing to fish until he produced a pen and a pencil, one in each hand. She gestured to the pencil, but her eyes were starting to droop again.

Too slo to sign I fogett, she scrawled, holding the pad up above her head, the letters slanting and shaky. She closed her eyes briefly. Slepe, she wrote slowly, letting her arms drop down. He turned the pad over to read it and then pulled it from her hand, giving it a little tug when her grip tightened against it. The pencil slipped out of the slack fingers of her other hand by itself.

"It's on the table." She nodded, eyes closed. "Watson, they're going to restrain your hands again, so you don't pull on the tube in your sleep." She scowled at that but was too tired to open her eyes. "Only another day or two, they said." She gave a little nod and was out.

Over the next two days, she gradually began to retain memories of time passing, a blessing and a curse as she regained awareness of how little she was able to do for herself and how often her sleep was interrupted in the name of her care. By day three she was off the ventilator and out of the ICU, which meant being woken up only every three to four hours at night instead of every one and a half to two. She suspected it was the improved sleeping conditions that played the largest part in her improved concentration, to the point that she started itching to research the topic. Or any topic. Being a patient was tedious, painful, and boring, and she increasingly longed for free movement and distraction. She wondered if this was what Sherlock felt like all the time.

Her mother spent all day, every day at the hospital. Sherlock stopped by in the evening when her mother left to get dinner but never stayed until she returned. At first Joan assumed they'd arranged it so she wouldn't be alone, but the lack of overlap was consistent enough that she asked the respiratory therapist who came by at 6am if the hospital had a one-visitor policy. She said no; two or three were generally allowed, circumstances permitting. Her mother said she didn't know where Sherlock was, and his replies to her texts weren't illuminating. Perhaps he hated hospitals too much; maybe it was too soon. She pondered it until the evening, when she overheard the hissed conversation in the hallway.

"—fault this happened. I can't make her stop working with you, but I don't have to permit you here!"

"Mrs. Watson—"

"Just leave. You've done enough."

"Yes, of course. I do take full responsibility. Please let Joan know—"

"I'll tell her you're working. She'll believe that. That's all you care about, I know. She's told me often enough."

"Hey!" Joan yelled, or tried to, but it came out as a hoarse whisper that triggered coughing and pain in her torso so sharp she gasped, which only made the cough and the pain worse. Her mother rushed in, dismayed by the tears streaming and her clenched-teeth struggle to stop the cough. "Water," she choked, and her mother passed her the cup and hovered, stroking her hair and then bracing her back when she leaned into it. After a few sips she got her lungs under control and allowed herself one push of the medication button to soothe the agony across her ribs. She lay back, hands rubbing her eyes before pushing her mother back.

"It's not his fault," she said. "I know you're upset, but that's my doing. Be mad at me."

"I am!" Mary went abruptly to the window and stared outside. From the bed, all Joan could see was black and the reflection of the brightly lit interior. "When I encouraged you— When I wanted you to be happy, this is not what I thought it would be."

"I wasn't expecting this either, Mom. Although maybe I had a better idea of the possibility than I let on."

"How could he have let this happen?"

"He didn't 'let' anything happen. If you only knew the arguments we've had about this! You just set me back months, sending him away like that. You know he agrees with you, right? He already thought this was his fault, and he's always trying to protect me, limit my risk, keep me safe. I have to fight him every time it comes up, and it was already going to be worse without you repeating the litany he was already reciting." She sipped more water, her throat rough, and tipped her head back, breath huffed in frustration.

"I just—" Her mother laid a hand over her foot at the end of the bed. "I want you safe, and I want you happy. Are you telling me I have to choose?"

"No. I'm telling you I do. I mean, it's my life, and I am happy with where I'm going now. You were right about that. And you know no life is without risk. You know it." She finished the water and held out the cup. Mary refilled it and leaned on the edge of the bed, by Joan's knees.

"You're exhausted, Mom. I'm all right now. I'm going to be fine. You should go home and sleep and do something else tomorrow. You've been here almost as long as I have. Take a break." She stifled a yawn and glanced at the clock on the wall. "Sorry. It's 7:30; time for my evening nap. Gotta be ready for my 11pm wake-up call for sleep medication."

Once her mother left, Joan tried to let sleep come but after fifteen minutes gave in to what she really wanted and picked up her phone.

My mother was wrong. Please come back.

Btr 4 all if I continue w case

I told her to take the day off, rest. Bring the case here.

U shd rest 2

U shd help me not be BORED

Checkmate, she thought, not surprised he didn't reply. She turned off her phone and slid into sleep.

When the nurse's ministrations woke her at 11, she saw the chair in the corner held a stack of file folders and books, with more papers strewn on the floor next to it. "I told him he didn't have to leave," he said, checking the state of the bandages on her leg and torso and handing her the next dose of medication. "Unless you find it distracting? I admit I wasn't expecting all of that." He shook his head at the mess. "Still, some patients sleep better with family near by."

"I'm used to it." She was glad Sherlock missed the "family" remark. That would likely send him out the door faster than a call for a consult at a new crime scene. "He'll be back. That's enough."

The moment the shots blasted across the entrance Holmes realized their mistake, the connection they'd overlooked. In panic, the timid suspect would of course reach out to his estranged cousin who may or may not have worked with Haliburton's special forces. No doubts about that question now.

They were outgunned by a factor of 10 at least. He grabbed Watson's arm to drag her with him behind the barrels and landed with a grunt and her empty coat sleeve in his fist. Turning back, she was down, hands over head, and in the smoke and flash he couldn't tell if she was moving. Then the barrel closest to him caught fire, and its lid cracked and popped off in three pieces, one of them slamming into his face. He smelled his own singed hair as he fell back away from the lazy flames coating the surface, scrambling toward Watson.

-.-

"I don't have one."

"What do you mean, you don't have one."

"All the traditional parties are thousands of miles away, a moot point given that they could not care less."

"First of all, the purpose of an emergency contact is not solely for those familial connections you love to disdain. Someone needs to handle the logistics you can't manage if you're unconscious."

"One of my father's lawyers would—"

"Second of all, as previously discussed, there are risks in the work we do. The practical thing is to prepare and plan. You've got to have preferences regarding your medical care, right? You can at least decide whether you'd want your brother or your father as primary contact, making decisions for you."

"You."

"I've had the paperwork done since medical school. It was actually a requirement for one of my classes. You're right, though, I should give you a copy—"

"No, that is, yes, we should have copies of such things in our business files. But no, you should be my emergency contact and medical proxy. You'd be easiest to reach, if not already at the scene, and your expertise makes you highly suitable in the unlikely event decisions are needed."

"Unlikely because…?"

"My enemies are also experts in their fields, Watson. In this worst case scenario you insist on painting, the probable outcome is my death. In which case, medical power of attorney would hardly be necessary."

"All right, but you know, your enemies are now my enemies. Remember, partner? I won't be much good to you if their 'expertise' is trained on me as well."

"Multiple contacts, then. You, and then, I don't know. Perhaps Alfredo would consider it." She started to speak but stopped at his glare. "Shared genetic material is insufficient basis for this role. If I needed a bone marrow transplant, I might reconsider. Otherwise, no." He was a little surprised that she stood up and walked away at that point, but the reprieve from having to discuss his relations was worth an hour of Watson being irritated with him.

-.-

At the hospital he never gave it a second thought. He said he was her partner, intent on the gurney still visible through the little windows, paying little mind to the hospital bureaucrat attempting to get his attention.

"Partner — do you mean that in a legal sense…?"

He dimly registered the question, muttered an affirmative; they'd filed the corporate paperwork a while ago. He was having trouble focusing but he thought they'd stopped her gurney and two or three people were standing around it now. Were they gesturing with urgency? He took a step toward the doors only to have his way blocked by the bureaucrat's arm.

"I know you're worried, but you can't go in there now. They'll take care of her. Let's get someone to tend to you, all right?" She was as tall as him, and had at least twenty pounds advantage, swimmer's shoulders putting force behind the arm that turned him away from where they took Watson.

An hour with an IV and a heating pad in the Emergency Room cleared his head enough to ask what was in the drip and tell them no narcotics. They doubled his ibuprofen dose and gave him an ice pack for his face, and he met Detective Bell at the discharge desk, his left arm in a sling.

"Cracked, not broken. Might be able to avoid a cast, if I'm lucky."

"We're both lucky, detective."

"Yeah. Two officers still in surgery. And Ms Watson?"

"Last I was told. I'm going to inquire now."

"Her mother already there? Better you than me; I never know what to say to family of folks on the job. I mean, we know what we signed up for, you know? They don't get it."

It wasn't until after they parted that he realized what Bell had said, which group he'd placed himself and Watson in. He'd be flattered, if he could feel anything at all.

Watson's phone was AWOL, and he wasn't about to leave to riffle through records at the brownstone. The phone book had 47 Watson M and Watson Mary in Manhattan, and she was number 22 judging by the voice on the message that picked up. He left his number and he hoped a reasonable amount of information, urgent but not too alarming. Watson had mentioned Mary was a late adopter of cell phones but she did have one. He'd have to contact her friend. Emily, the journalist. She might be able to contact Mary. He started to rub his eyes and winced, switching to hold the ice pack to his forehead again. This was not how it was supposed to go.

-.-

She came down to the kitchen as he removed the roasted squash from the oven.

"Soup?" she asked, sounding hopeful. He hummed an affirmative. "Anything need chopping?"

"I haven't started the onions or celery yet," he said.

He scraped and mashed the hot orange pulp and blended it with the stock while she sauteed the other ingredients. They didn't often cook together — there was a baking fiasco neither spoke about — but they were compatible in their soup preferences, both making and eating, and fell into an easy rhythm. They took turns washing their hands at the sink once the big pot was simmering, and when she passed him the dish towel to dry his hands she said, "I'll be your emergency contact, okay, as long as you pick someone else for a back up."

He nodded, folding the towel.

"And… I think it makes sense for you to be mine, as well. If you agree? With my mother."

"If I agree with your mother?"

"I'll leave that up to the two of you; I'll be blissfully unaware."

"Is my nomination upsetting some other long-held assignment?"

"I've given Em's name as contact sometimes. I doubt she even remembers that, though. Nobody's ever had to use it."

"Em, your friend who thought you were wasting your time working with me."

"She wasn't the only one confused by my career changes in recent years. But outside of family, I've known her the longest of anyone."

"Long acquaintance has poor correlation with either knowledge or communication."

"True, but there is something to be said for shared personal history."

-.-

"Honey, your husband's here, he'll be so happy to see you awake."

He jerked up from where he was leaning against the wall outside her room and hurried in. "Partner, she prefers partner. Not husband." He glanced at her, wary. "Definitely not husband."

"Okay," the nurse said, chuckling at him. "Partner." She lowered her voice a bit. "She'll probably drop off again quickly. And won't remember it, anyway." She patted his arm and left.

"I finally got a hold of your mother, Watson. She's quite the traveller in her retirement. She'll be here tomorrow." She blinked at him, and he wasn't sure she had understood. "Your mother," he said more slowly. "She'll be here soon." She blinked again, then squinted, staring at him. "Is there something you need? Do you want to write it out?" He held a pad and pencil toward her, which she ignored, still intent on his face, confused, it seemed. Or disturbed.

"Watson? Do you know where you are?" She nodded slowly, glancing away toward the monitors and the glass walls looking out across the ICU, then back to him. She raised her hands to take the paper from him, and wrote a word before hesitantly turning it back to him.

husband?

He snorted and looked back at her, his amusement fading at the confusion in her eyes.

"Watson, do you— Do you know who I am?" Her eyes darted across the room and back to him, afraid, now. He realized his expression had frozen, and he tried to relax, appear reassuring. "I'm your partner. Your business partner. Holmes." He put his right hand on his chest, and then extended it tentatively to pick up hers and give a gentle shake before releasing it. "Sherlock Holmes. I'm sure you'll remember me soon enough, and look back on this time fondly." He tried to keep a light smile on his face as her eyelids drooped back into unconsciousness.

Over the next twelve hours, she became more restless and less coherent, waking in panic from the tube in her throat over and over again. Her temperature spiked, her hands were buckled down, and it was one of the worst nights of his life. Hers too, he could only imagine. He thought learning of the complications during surgery was horrible — her reaction to the anesthesia and the possibility of coma — but he hadn't been present for any of it; the delay had been excruciating, but the explanation came after the fact, when the immediate danger had passed.

There was nothing he could do now but witness, repeat the same information to try to calm her, and forcibly ratchet down his own anxiety by observing the reaction of the ICU staff. They were attentive but not agitated, and he concluded their reassurances were based at least as much on past evidence of good outcomes as on strategies for managing patient families. It had eventually dawned on him what they thought he'd meant by "partner," and pragmatics dictated it was more efficient to let the misconception stand. He'd bear the label "family member" to avoid having to fight to stay with her. And deal with the repercussions once Mary arrived, then.

-.-

"Oh god, she had the most intimidating profile thing." Emily shook her head. "They sent us the name and background of our roommates a month before the term started. Joan was going to be pre-med, had done varsity soccer and cross-country. Student council and a bunch of other clubs; there was more. Mine wasn't bad, but I knew which of my things were just padding. I hadn't figured out yet we're all fakers one way or another."

"Are you saying Watson lied about her background?" He rubbed the hinge of his jaw on the unburnt side and reviewed his observations about her: she relied on wikipedia a little too often to meet professional standards; told people she got her journalism degree from Columbia without specifying University of South Carolina at, and harbored serious misgivings about that second child.

"No, no. It was all true. I just don't think her heart was in it. She was always very good at meeting everyone else's expectations." She stared down at her fingers, twisting her wedding ring, and then looked over to watch Watson, asleep. "Her heart's in it now, though." From his peripheral vision he saw her turn toward him, but he continued to pretend to be flicking through his messages. "Thank you, for that. Helping her find what she was meant to do."

He fidgeted his his chair, tapping his lower teeth against the uppers behind tight lips. This was the woman who had cultivated and watered Watson's self-doubt in the early days of their partnership. Watson had assured him she'd come around since then. He released a long sigh. Perhaps it was true.

"She's never met my expectations." Emily looked up, startled, her face reflecting the mirror image of his own wariness about her moments ago. "She surprised me the first day we met. Surprises me still."

She relaxed, smiling again. "You like that."

He tilted his head in acknowledgment.

"Can you tell her? 'Cause honestly, telling me doesn't matter."

"No need."

"Tell me what," Watson grumbled, shifting against the crackly sheets.

"That I'm tired of watching you sleep all day," Emily said. "Just like college."

"Oh god, those were the days. Ten, twelve hours at a stretch…"

"Watson! What a shameful waste of the most productive years of your life."

"Not gonna get them back now. I only regret I didn't sleep in more often. You're one to talk, weeks of twenty minute naps interrupted by three-day binges of comatose drooling into the couch." Emily laughed, and Watson turned to her, "I'm not exaggerating. That's what he calls a sleep schedule. Says it's the most efficient use of his brain."

She raised the bed upright and tried to push her hair into some sort of order. Emily got up and came to her side. "Can I brush it for you? It's kinda out of control. Maybe a braid?"

Watson sighed, testing the range of motion of her right arm until she winced, hand as high as her ear. "Yeah, I can't do it yet. Thanks."

She closed her eyes and sighed again as Emily moved the brush across her scalp and carefully detangled the long strands. His thighs twitched from sitting so long. He dug the heels of his palms into his quads to release the tension. Interesting how much more intimate observing her hair being brushed seemed than seeing it in its chaotic state. Of course in the first instance he observed her awareness of the sensation, while in the second her unselfconsciousness. Other variables may factor in as well. Comfort from an old friend versus acceptance from a new one. The environment was clearly significant as—

"Whatever experiment you're running in there, stop," Watson said, eyes still closed. "Would you go get us some tea? My mother said there's a cafe two blocks south that uses leaves, not bags."

He popped up out of the chair, overextending backwards to stretch before glancing a question to Emily.

"I'm good, thanks."

"Back in a bit." He recalled there was a coin shop nearby that might still be open for a brief consult.

"Take your time, maybe find a little something to investigate. Just do that before you get the tea."

He shook out his jacket from the back of the chair and stuffed his arms into the sleeves. "Any other stipulations?"

"Surprise me."